How to properly handle exceptions when performing file io

Often I find myself interacting with files in some way but after writing the code I'm always uncertain how robust it actually is. The problem is that I'm not entirely sure how file related operations can fail and, therefore, the best way to handle exceptions.

The simple solution would seem to be just to catch any IOExceptions thrown by the code and give the user an "Inaccessible file" error message, but is it possible to get a bit more fine-grained error messages? Is there a way to determine the difference between such errors as a file being locked by another program and the data being unreadable due to a hardware error?

Given the following C# code, how would you handle errors in a user friendly (as informative as possible) way?

public class IO
{
   public List<string> ReadFile(string path)
   {
      FileInfo file = new FileInfo(path);

      if (!file.Exists)
      {
         throw new FileNotFoundException();
      }

      StreamReader reader = file.OpenText();
      List<string> text = new List<string>();

      while (!reader.EndOfStream)
      {
         text.Add(reader.ReadLine());
      }

      reader.Close();
      reader.Dispose();
      return text;
   }

   public void WriteFile(List<string> text, string path)
   {
      FileInfo file = new FileInfo(path);

      if (!file.Exists)
      {
         throw new FileNotFoundException();
      }

      StreamWriter writer = file.CreateText();

      foreach(string line in text)
      {
         writer.WriteLine(line);
      }

      writer.Flush();
      writer.Close();
      writer.Dispose();
   }
}

c# .net exception file-io

Edit Report

I don't see the point in checking for existence of a file and throwing a FileNotFoundException with no message. The framework will throw the FileNotFoundException itself, with a message.

Another problem with your example is that you should be using the try/finally pattern or the using statement to ensure your disposable classes are properly disposed even when there is an exception.

I would do this something like the following, catch any exception outside the method, and display the exception's message :

public IList<string> ReadFile(string path)
{
    List<string> text = new List<string>();
    using(StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(path))
    {
      while (!reader.EndOfStream)      
      {         
         text.Add(reader.ReadLine());      
      }
    }
    return text;
}

answered 2008-09-17T19:52:15.810

How to properly handle exceptions when performing file io

1 Answer

Your Answer